


Look Into My Eyes

by TeamHPForever



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, mentions of past rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:50:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamHPForever/pseuds/TeamHPForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leaving the battlefield that was once SHIELD behind, Steve goes to find Bucky to help him remember the life he's lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Into My Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I knew as soon as I watched CA:WS that I had to write this. It took a while and a repeated viewing, but it's finally finished. The title is from Demons by Imagine Dragons which will probably always remind me of Bucky.

Steve finds Bucky in the same place where they first met. Well, not _quite_ the same place. A lot has changed in the last seventy years.

The dress shop next door is a club now, closed at the moment, but the bar they’re behind is still a bar. It’s changed hands half a dozen times but somehow knowing that he could walk through that door and buy a pint as easily as he could seventy years ago is oddly comforting.

Bucky is crouched against the brick wall, head in his hands. He’s still wearing his black uniform but his mask is gone. His hair is lank and hanging around his face.

“Who are you?” Bucky asks, his voice rough with uncertainty.

“I’m Steve Rogers.” He approaches carefully, watching for signs that the Winter Soldier might be getting ready to attack. His instincts tell him that this is Bucky, this is his best friend standing right in front of him, but caution is still essential. “We are— _were—_ best friends. A long time ago.”

Bucky turns away from him, looking around with his forehead creased in confusion. It burns Steve to see him like this. Bucky was always so sure of himself, almost to the point of arrogance. He would never let anything or anyone get in his way, or Steve’s, for that matter. Now his face looks almost childish in his uncertainty.

“Why do I remember this place?” he asks.

Steve takes another step closer, bringing Bucky within arm’s length. “This is where we first met. It was different then.”

“Tell me.” He looks like a kid begging for a bed time story.

“I was getting the hell beat out of me, right here in this alley.” Steve waves at the walls around them. The alley had looked a lot like this then, maybe a little more cluttered with garbage. “Two guys. I don’t even remember what I said.”

“They were hitting on a girl who clearly wasn’t interested,” Bucky says, eyes wide and a faint smile on his face as he remembers.

“That’s right.” Steve can’t help smiling too. “They’d just broken my nose when you showed up. Sent them both running.”

“Then I shook your hand and said, ‘Do you always meet people this way?’” Bucky’s laughing now, bent over like it’s the funniest joke he’s ever heard. Steve can’t help but wonder when the last time Bucky laughed at all was.

“I hadn’t had any friends until then,” Steve admits, his voice almost a whisper. “I never told you that, but you were my first and best friend.”

Bucky stands up, slowly like his legs are stiff. “What about now?”

“You’re still my first and best friend.” He doesn’t hesitate to say it, not even after everything that’s just happened. Even now with the world crashing down around him it’s the only thing he’s certain of.

“Will you help me remember?” he asks.

“I didn’t come after you for anything else.” Steve steps into Bucky’s space and reaches out slowly with one hand when he doesn’t flinch away. His best friend watches as his hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Bucky follows him out of the back alley and into the streets. They’re a lot busier than they were last time, more cars and more people and more everything. Sometimes the busy-ness of it all gives Steve a headache. He can’t imagine what it must be like for Bucky.

“To get you some decent clothes.” Steve looks him over with a raised eyebrow. “No offense, but you don’t exactly fit in, even here.”

“I’ll have you know that these clothes are the height of fashion in international espionage.” Bucky grins for a moment before his smile falters and he stares at the ground.

Steve takes him to a little back corner store, somewhere small and quiet but with a decent selection. Bucky goes straight to the jeans, just like Steve figured he would. Denim was always Bucky’s style, when he wasn’t wearing his military uniform. Which was always after he’d enlisted.

“I can’t pay for all this,” Bucky realizes once he’s picked up a couple pairs of jeans and a some button-ups. He starts to reach into his pocket.

Steve flashes a credit card at him. It’s SHIELD issue and he figures they’ll be too busy fighting each other for anyone to think to shut down the accounts. “We can bill it to SHIELD.”

Bucky’s entire face goes blank in less than a second. The transformation is so startling, Steve has to take a step back. Then, just like that, his smile is back and Bucky is taking the credit card from his hand. “All right.”

Once the clothes are paid for, Bucky slips into the restroom and comes out wearing jeans and a shirt that’s just a touch too big. Steve doesn’t comment on it.

He’s too busy feeling like he just got punched in the chest because that’s Bucky. _Bucky._ Standing right in front of him like it’s the ‘40s all over again and Steve is about to admit to being rejected again from enlisting and then Bucky will tell him it’s for the best and that he’s coming dancing tonight.

“How do I look?” Bucky asks, trying to reflect that same old cockiness that he always did, but falling short.

“You look great, Buck.” Steve leads him out of the store and down the street. There are a lot of things that they could do, but Bucky looks dead on his feet—not surprising considering the circumstances—and Steve wouldn’t mind climbing into a bed somewhere either.

His apartment is out of the question. It’s still shot up and he’s not sure Bucky needs the reminder. Tony promised him a room at Stark Tower, but he can’t be sure that it’s empty since that was true for all the Avengers. He doesn’t even want to think about his rooms at SHIELD.

Steve is staring at the street signs at the intersection when he remembers Clint and Natasha’s network of safe houses. Most of them are off the grid—old habits die hard—and there’s one only about six blocks away.

“Come on,” Steve says, waving for Bucky to follow him as he crosses the street, “I know a place we can go. No one at SHIELD knows where it is. We should be safe there.”

Bucky follows him trustingly and Steve’s heart clenches at the gesture. He wonders when the last time Bucky trusted anyone was, and realizes that it must have been the last time he saw him.

The apartment is tiny but it’s not meant to be lived in for long periods of time. There’s a room with a bed, attached to a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom. The fridge is empty but the cupboards are stocked with non-perishables.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Steve asks, waving at the bed. “I’ll see if I can knock something together in here.”

“You sure?” Bucky looks like he’s about to fall over but he stays standing just outside the kitchen.

“Yeah. Go on.” Steve grabs a few cans of soup from a cupboard and a pan from another. By the time he glances back into the bedroom, Bucky’s already fallen asleep on top of the covers with his clothes on.

Steve hums while he works, glancing over his shoulder every few minutes just to make sure Bucky’s still there. He’s afraid that the next time he turns around, he’ll have disappeared like this whole thing is a dream.

Steve has already lost Bucky twice. He’s sure that he can’t do it again.

The soup’s almost warmed up when Steve hears the strangest sound from behind him. It’s almost like a whimper and when he turns around he sees Bucky clawing at the pillow with his face screwed up, still asleep.

Steve turns the stove off and wraps up the soup, putting it in the microwave. It’ll wait until later. After that, it feels like the most natural thing in the world to climb into bed next to Bucky, calming him with a gentle hand against his back.

They climbed into bed together more than once, after Steve rescued Bucky from the torture in Austria. Steve always knew when Bucky was having a nightmare and in the end, laying next to each other was the only way he’d calm down.

Steve knows better than to think that it’s just the comfort of knowing he’s near and not leaving again. They may not have done anything in decades, but that doesn’t mean that Steve doesn’t still remember what Bucky felt like beneath his hands.

Steve wakes a couple hours later to Bucky’s head on his chest. When he shifts, trying to work himself into a more comfortable position, Bucky asks, “Did we do this often?” and he feels like he just got hit in the stomach with a Chitauri blaster again.

“Sometimes,” Steve answers, hand wandering down the smooth plane of Bucky’s back. He can feel the points of his shoulder blades there, and it feels wrong somehow. “When you had nightmares.”

Bucky shivers and snuggles closer to him, like he’s trying to absorb Steve’s warmth. “We started in that place. After you saved me.”

“Austria.” Steve nods, the bottom of his chin rubbing against Bucky’s hair. “I wasn’t going to come home without you.”

“That was the first time I saw you as Captain America.” Bucky’s voice is full of wonder, like he’s experiencing it for the first time and he’s amazed by it all. “You said you thought I was dead.”

“You told me that you thought I was smaller.” Steve chuckles at the memory, though he’d been too terrified to laugh at the time. He hadn’t known what he would find when he crashed into that camp, he just knew that he wasn’t going to walk away from there without knowing exactly what happened to Bucky. “I have some soup, if you’re hungry.”

“Starving.” Bucky doesn’t move until Steve rolls his shoulder, trying to point out without actually saying it that they can’t eat unless they actually get out of bed. It’s an unfortunate fact of the twenty-first century.

Bucky rolls off the bed, moving with a grace that’s almost chilling, and heads into the bathroom. Steve goes into the kitchen and puts the soup back on the stove to warm up again. He has two bowls on the table before Bucky comes back out again.

“Starting to think you’d forgotten how everything worked,” Steve can’t help but tease as Bucky settles down in front of one of the bowls.

Bucky scowls at him, but there’s a hint of a smile peeking at the corners of his lips. “You’re a punk.”

Steve doesn’t even try to suppress the answering grin. “Jerk.”

They settle down easily, eating soup while Steve explains the new world. It’s an interesting change, meeting someone who actually knows less about the present than he does. He explains the Internet (“It’s a giant network of people and information. You can find out anything you want to know, and some things you don’t”) and smartphones (“They’re not really smart, they can just do a lot of things. They run programs called _apps_ and there’s an app for everything Tony says”) and those stupid buttons that people press when they want to cross the street even though they don’t actually do anything.

When they’re finished, Steve fishes a laptop out from under the floorboards and presses his thumb to the scanner. Tony developed it himself, creating a whole string of laptops programmed to respond only to the Avengers so that they could have them in safe houses.

He introduces Bucky to YouTube and Netflix and somehow they end up working their way through Bond movies. Steve isn’t exactly a fan but Bucky devours them like he can’t get enough. That is until he falls asleep with his head on Steve’s chest.

Steve watches the rest of the movie and then closes the laptop slowly, pushing it onto the side table as gently as he can. He places a kiss on the top of Bucky’s head, knowing that he’s pretty much dead to the world anyway, and then falls asleep.

In the morning, Steve wakes to the smell of eggs frying. He rolls out of bed and walks to the kitchen, grinning as he spots Bucky standing shirtless in front of the stove. He snarls as a bit of grease catches him on the arm but keeps cooking anyway.

“Do you still like your eggs sunny-side-up?” Bucky asks without turning around. Steve jumps, though he doesn’t know why he thought he’d be able to sneak up on a famed assassin.

“Yeah, I do.” Steve steps across the tile floor and peeks into the pan, eggs cooking exactly the way he likes them. Bucky serves them up with a side of toast and Steve takes a bite.

They’re so good he wants to cry. He’s tried to replicate them a hundred times himself, asked countless cooks and even JARVIS once to make eggs like this, but they’ve never been able to get it exactly right. He hadn’t realized until now that the thing missing from the recipe was Bucky.

“How are they?” Bucky asks as he settles down next to him.

“Perfect.” Steve tries to savor the next bite. “You’ve seriously got to teach me how to do that.”

“Sorry.” Bucky grins at him. “It’s all in the cook.” They eat in silence for a while and then Bucky says, “What’s Coney Island?”

Steve flashes back to the time they’d saved up enough money to finally go and check out all the rides. “What do you remember?”

“You didn’t want to go.” Bucky’s face screws up with concentration, and he gets that beaten look in his eyes that Steve hates so much. Like he’s sad but he doesn’t know why. “No, that’s not it. You wanted to go but you didn’t want on some of the rides.”

“It’s an amusement park in Brooklyn.” Steve scrapes at his plate with his fork, trying to get the last bits of egg. “You wanted to go on the Cyclone, this big rollercoaster, and I didn’t want to.”

“I begged.” Bucky smiles and his eyes are bright again. “I said that I couldn’t believe you were going to make me go alone.”

“I gave in.” Steve laughs and gets up to carry their plates to the sink. “You used to be able to get me to do anything.”

“Not anything.” Bucky’s voice has an odd hitch to it at the end, but before Steve can really think about it, he continues, “Does Coney Island still exist?”

“It does.” Steve rinses off the plates and stuffs them in the dishwasher, another safe house upgrade courtesy of Tony. “Cyclone too, though I think it’s been remodeled since our day. Want to go now?”

Bucky nods eagerly and they head into the bedroom to get changed. Steve stuffs his hair into a ball cap and finds a second one for Bucky. With him disguised as best as possible in a loose-fitting long-sleeve shirt and jeans, they head back out into the city.

It’s easy to blend in with the crowd of people going about their daily business. So easy, in fact, that Steve is almost able to forget that any of them could be an agent of Hydra and that there’s currently a war going on underground.

They catch a bus and then walk the short distance the rest of the way. Coney Island spreads out in front of them, a steady mass of people and rides. Bucky seems to know exactly where he’s going, walking on ahead and only stopping when they reach a massive wooden coaster.

“Cyclone,” Bucky says.

Steve nods in agreement. The coaster is a line of drops and turns that had once made his young knees tremble with nerves when Bucky had pointed at it. Now they’re standing here once again and Bucky’s looking ready to do it all over again.

“Let’s go on it,” Bucky says, pointing in the exact same way he had many years earlier. It’s enough to make Steve feel like he’s five feet tall again.

“All right.” It takes about fifteen minutes before they’re standing in line and then another ten before they’re climbing side-by-side into a cart. After a short announcement, the ride starts moving. There’s a steady rhythm of the chains in the background as they climb the first hill and then it lets them go.

The wind whistles in Steve’s ears as they charge down the hill and up the next, sliding around a turn only to plunge down again. He tries not to think of the last time he was on this coaster with Bucky, also tries not to think about the last time they talked about it.

The last time he ever talked to Bucky.

Instead he laughs and shouts and tries to watch Bucky as much as humanly possible while he’s jolted up and down. When the ride trawls back into the station, it’s almost too soon. Bucky stumbles out and Steve follows on steady legs.

“You’re not going to throw up this time, are you?” Steve asks as he follows his friend. Bucky shakes his head and leans against the outside fence.

“It’s just…remembering…” He leans his face against the metal and takes deep breaths. Steve rests his hand against his best friend’s shoulder. “You threw up the first time we went on it. On my shoes, if I remember right.”

Steve chuckles. “It was on your shoes. You’d just found them in the dumpster the week before and I ruined them.”

“Loved those shoes.” Bucky pretends to look mournful for a second. “Then, when we did that thing with the train.”

Steve’s heart drops to the ground. “You asked me if it was payback for Cyclone.”

“It was…I didn’t mean…” Bucky leans into the fence until the metal links start to press against his forehead, leaving marks. Steve grips his shoulder tighter and pulls him away into a hug.

“Hey, I know.” He rests his head on top of Bucky’s, something he was never able to do before the serum. Not unless Bucky was sitting on the floor. “Come on, let’s go check out the rest of the park.”

They wander for a couple of hours, riding anything that catches their attention. At least until Steve runs out of cash.

“I have some,” Bucky says, pulling a wad of dirty bills out of his pocket.

Steve’s eyes widen as he catches sight of some of them, but he pushes Bucky’s hand away. “Someone has to pay for the cab ride home,” he says.

Bucky gives in under the condition that they at least buy a couple hot dogs and drinks. Steve accepts and they eat them at a little picnic table while the sun starts to go down behind them.

The steady sound of a helicopter echoes across the grounds and Steve can see the exact moment Bucky leaves and the Winter Soldier steps in. His entire posture changes, going from easy and relaxed to attack-ready in a split second.

Steve tries to stay calm but his spine tenses like a live wire. He knows Bucky and how to calm him down, but this isn’t Bucky.

“Bucky,” Steve murmurs. “Bucky Barnes.” He keeps repeating it, like a prayer, as the tension slowly melts out of his best friend. His left arm settles back into his lap first, cradled by his right like a precious object. Then he starts to slouch, his spine softening from its ramrod straightness. Finally he turns around.

“Steve,” Bucky whispers.

Steve’s throat tightens as he remembers the last time Bucky said his name like that, trapped in a torture chamber in Austria. “I’m not going anywhere, Bucky.”

“Can we go home?” Bucky’s eyes are the only part of him to betray the slight desperation behind the question. Steve gathers up the garbage to throw away and nods.

Bucky heads immediately to the shower once they make it back to the safe house. Nothing better to do, Steve puts away the dishes from the dishwasher, tidies up the kitchen, and then settles down on the couch with the laptop.

After what seems like forever, Bucky finally comes out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his hips and heads straight to the bedroom. Steve watches him go, taking in the flex of hard muscles and new scars. The silver of the metal arm is a stark contrast to the rich tan of his skin.

Bucky comes back out wearing a T-shirt and jeans and drops down on the couch next to him. “What are we catching up on this time?” he asks, sitting so close that the damp ends of his hair keep brushing against Steve’s neck. Steve’s never found something so distracting in his life.

Steve opens up Netflix again and they scan through his queue until finally settling on Star Trek. Six hours later, they’re both so taken with it that Steve has trouble closing the laptop and insisting that they both eat dinner before they go to bed.

Steve wakes in the morning to the familiar feel of lips against his. For a moment, he’s back in his old apartment with Bucky. Then he feels the cold press of metal against his bare shoulder and his eyes flash open.

Bucky moves away at the surge of tension. “I’m sorry. I just…remembered.” He looks like he’s braced for a scolding and Steve can’t help himself.

He grabs his best friend by the shoulders and pulls him back into the kiss. Bucky stays frozen for a moment before he starts to respond. Steve tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, the way he remembers Bucky loves best. Bucky lets out a soft moan and then nudges him to do it again.

Steve grabs him around the waist and rolls, pinning Bucky beneath him. Tony may make constant jokes about him being the ninety-year-old virgin, but Steve knows that’s far from the truth. Tony isn’t wrong about it being a long time, though.

Bucky moves underneath him, trying to get the right angle for friction. He lifts his head up, biting down the length of Steve’s neck.

Steve straddles him, balancing his weight so he can runs his hands down over Bucky’s chest and tug at the drawstrings of his sweatpants.

“If you wanted in my pants all you had to do was ask,” Bucky whispers in his ear, licking around the outer shell. His voice is low and husky and sends a shudder down Steve’s spine.

“Shut up,” Steve answers and pushes down Bucky’s sweatpants just enough. He keeps his eyes on Bucky’s, needing more than anything to see him so that he knows that this isn’t just a dream, while he slides down.

Bucky’s head falls backward a split second before Steve reaches out to wrap a hand around the base.

Bucky’s cock feels exactly the way he remembers, hard and strangely soft. Steve knows exactly how he likes being stroked, exactly how he likes a rub of his thumb over the head.

“Oh my God, Steve,” Bucky gasps, shoving pillows under his head so that he can watch. “You haven’t forgotten a thing.”

Steve leans down and licks a stripe up, resting a hand on Bucky’s hips to hold him down when he tries to buck into it. He sucks Bucky’s head into his mouth.

One second he’s slowly moving down and the next Bucky is standing next to the bed, facing away. Steve blinks, not entirely sure how he managed to move so fast, and sits up.

“Buck?” He doesn’t reach out, recognizing the Winter Soldier’s stiffness in the shoulders and spine. Bucky’s hands are clenched into fists so tight they’re actually shaking and his head is bowed down.

Steve stays where he is on the bed, just watching, until Bucky finally relaxes enough to turn around. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice almost hoarse. “I’m sorry, Steve.” He pulls his sweatpants up as he stands next to the bed and stares at the floor.

“Hey.” Steve moves over and taps the bed next to him until Bucky sits down. “Talk to me.”

“There were a few women in Hydra, and some men, who liked me,” Bucky says, tone completely lacking in emotion. “Sometimes, if I did really well on a mission, Pierce would let them use me. Use the Soldier.” A shudder runs up his spine. “It was meant as a kind of reward.”

Steve feels like he’s going to be sick. “Bucky, if you don’t want to, we don’t have to. It’s okay.”

Bucky leans back, resting his head in Steve’s lap. They curl up on the bed for a few hours, unmoving, until Steve’s stomach starts to growl so loud that it sends Bucky laughing.

Steve watches as he rolls out of bed and into the kitchen. After the shaking of several boxes and a loud banging, he follows to see what’s going on. Bucky’s standing in front of the stove, heating a pan of water over his metal hand.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, leaning against the doorway.

“Making it boil faster.” Bucky grins at him. “If I’m going to have this damn thing then I might as well make it useful.”

Steve resists the urge to walk up and wrap his arms around Bucky as he turns to put the boiling water on the stove. He pours an entire box of pasta into the pot and swirls it around a bit.

The kitchen light throws Bucky’s scars into soft relief. There are so many, crossing over each other and snaking down over the smooth planes of his back. Some of them Steve recognizes from after Austria: the darker ones across his shoulder blades, a single line that cuts over his lower back. But some of them are new. Bright pink and still raw. He wants to touch them, make them disappear.

“We should probably cut your hair,” Steve says when Bucky glances over his shoulder. “So you’re less noticeable.”

Bucky nods and that’s how Steve finds himself standing behind his best friend holding a pair of scissors. “I don’t know about this,” Steve says, staring at the smooth length of Bucky’s dark brown hair. He doesn’t want to cut it. He wants to run his fingers through it, watch it drape over Bucky’s face, tug on it as Bucky sucks him off.

“Come on, Steve,” Bucky says. “Unless you know an undercover hairdresser willing to cut the hair of a wanted assassin, someone has to do it.”

Steve nods, sectioning on a lock and listening to the sharp _snip_ of the scissors as he cuts it off. It takes about a half hour, mostly because Steve wants it to be perfect, but finally Bucky’s hair is back to its usual short length. Bucky ruffles it with both hands when Steve announces that he’s done.

Bucky settles down on the couch while Steve cleans up. Music starts playing. “I’m working my way through the hits of the past thirty years,” he explains when Steve asks.

Steve wanders out of the kitchen and reaches out a hand. “This is a song that deserves to be danced to,” he says.

Bucky grins and accepts the hand, resting his other on Steve’s waist. “I used to be the one to hold your shoulder,” he murmurs.

“I know.” Steve laughs as he tightens his grip on his best friend’s shoulder and spins them around. “It was too hard for me to reach.”

They lapse into silence. The last notes of the song trickle away in the background but neither of them notices. Bucky closes his eyes and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder. They don’t dance so much as rock back and forth in a small circle, just enjoying each other’s closeness.

“I taught you how to dance,” Bucky says, the words muffled by Steve’s shirt. He turns his head slightly so that he can talk better. “You didn’t want to let me at first.”

Steve nods, the bottom of his chin brushing against Bucky’s newly-cut hair. “You told me that no respectable gentleman didn’t know how to dance.”

“And then you said how would I know what respectable gentlemen knew how to do.” Bucky grins, laughter evident in his voice. “Hey, the song’s off.” He pulls away, distracted, and bends over the laptop to find another.

“What’d you put on?” Steve asks when Bucky returns to his arms.

“Something on that website with all the videos called ‘slow dancing songs.’ Seemed appropriate.” Bucky rests his metal arm against Steve’s shoulder. “Let me lead this time, okay?”

Steve throws his head back in a laugh as Bucky leads him around the room, spinning them both around. It’s been years but he still remembers all the steps like it was just yesterday.

“Do you know why I never wanted to go dancing with you?” Steve asks, his fingertips digging just a bit into Bucky’s side. Bucky raises an eyebrow in answer and doesn’t interrupt. “It’s because I couldn’t stand watching you dance with those girls and wishing it was me.”

“You could have danced with those girls too,” Bucky points out with a teasing grin.

Steve shoves him back gently. “I meant dancing you with _you,_ idiot.”

The smile slips off Bucky’s face for a second and something flashes in his eyes. It’s dark and confused, but not like the Winter Soldier. “That’s when we first kissed, isn’t it?”

Steve nods, flushed at the memory. “You dipped me, trying to demonstrate how to do it, and then you kissed me.”

“That’s right.” Bucky slides a hand farther down his back and Steve knows what’s going to happen before it does, doesn’t even think about stopping it. He just lets Bucky bend him back, resting his weight against the cold strength of the metal arm and then just as he’s coming up Bucky is leaning down to kiss him.

It’s dry and chaste and quick, much like their kiss in the past, and then Bucky’s guiding him back straight and shifting their hands so Steve can lead. “I’m not sure how I feel about this new music,” Bucky says.

“Me neither,” Steve admits. Tony has been insisting to expose him to as much new music as humanly possible (mainly what he calls “rock”) but he still hasn’t been able to recapture the feeling of being stretched out across a bed that’s too small and listening to the notes fill the room.

Steve feels it now, here with Bucky. That soaring feeling over his heart and the way the soft notes float over his skin.

“We’re going to have to move on soon,” Steve says that night when they’re stretched out in bed together, still wearing shirts and boxers. He’s tried not to think about it all day, but Natasha has rules about not staying in a safe house for more than a few days if you’re being hunted. Steve doesn’t have much experience to go on so he figures her rules are ones that should be abided by.

Bucky tenses up at the news. “Where will we go?”

“There’s another safe house. It’s up north, in the country. No one for miles. We can stay there for a little longer.” Steve knows that they won’t be able to run like this forever. That eventually the world will straighten itself out and he’ll be expected to be a part of it. He just hopes it happens fast and without Hydra rearing it’s ugly head again.

“I trust you.” Bucky rests a head against Steve’s chest, right over his heart. “How will we get there?”

“I’ll call Tony in the morning. Make him leave us a car somewhere. It’ll be less conspicuous than stealing one.” Steve means it as a joke but Bucky ducks his head, looking ashamed. “That wasn’t you.”

“Sometimes it was.” Bucky shoves his face into Steve’s chest right alongside his hand. It isn’t until he starts to shake that Steve realizes he’s crying.

Steve runs his hand up and down his best friend’s back until he quiets down and his breathing levels out into the depths of sleep. Only then does Steve let his head fall down next to him and he drifts off.

JARVIS answers the phone when Steve calls in the morning. It’s easier to talk to Tony’s talking house on the phone, where he can imagine he’s speaking to an English butler instead of a disembodied voice.

“Mr. Rogers.” JARVIS sounds surprised, if that’s possible for a computer. “Mr. Stark is indisposed at the moment but I can wake him if you need…”

“No, that’s not necessary.” Steve keeps his voice low, not wanting to wake Bucky now that he’s actually sleeping soundly. “You can help me better than Tony can, I think. I need a car. Fake name, I don’t care what. I want it left outside of Brooklyn.” He rattles off an address, somewhere fairly remote where no one will notice a car sitting around. “Tinted windows and a place where there aren’t any cameras around would be perfect.”

“It is done, sir. Black Escalade, license plate TS3682. Would you be needing anything else, sir?”

“You wouldn’t happen to be able to fill that car with groceries, would you?” Steve feels like he’s grasping at straws here but he doesn’t have much money left and it’s not worth the risk of billing anything else to SHIELD.

JARVIS is silent for a minute. “That would be outside of my capabilities, sir, but I believe that I can place an order for groceries to be delivered to the abandoned house across the street within two hours.”

“JARVIS, if Stark ever threatens to soak your circuits again you send him straight to me,” Steve says with a grin. “You’re brilliant.”

“You are very kind, sir. Will there be anything else?”

Steve taps his fingers against the wall. “Just tell Stark I’m safe, all right? And if you could not tell him about the car and the groceries that’d be great.”

“Of course, sir.” JARVIS pauses for a few moments and then adds, “Good luck, Mr. Rogers.”

“Thanks.” Steve hangs up the phone and turns around in time to see Bucky sitting on the bed watching him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Bucky shakes his head. “I was already awake. So everything ready for us to run away together to a house in the country?”

“I have a car and food.” Steve finds a bundle of plastic bags underneath the sink and grabs a couple of them. They’ll need something to carry their clothes in. “We should probably shower before we go.”

Bucky grins at him as he accepts a plastic bag. “You know I hear there’s a saying these days that we should shower together to conserve water.”

Steve snorts and pushes him toward the bathroom. “Go. I’ll get things cleaned up here.”

It doesn’t take long to put away the last of the clean dishes, hide the laptop away, and pack up their stuff. Steve tries to make sure that everything is as he found it and then when Bucky comes out of the shower he jumps straight in.

Within half an hour, Steve’s peeking out the door before he steps out into the sun, Bucky right on his heels. The car is parked right along the street, the bags of groceries sitting hidden behind a ragged bush as promised. There’s even milk and cheese and meat stored in a refrigerated bag inside a cooler.

“The mechanical arm is great, but check this out,” Bucky says, holding up the bag. “This stuff’s been out here for at least two and a half hours and it’s still _cold._ ”

“Yeah, I know.” Steve pulls the car keys out from under the visor. “Load it up and let’s go.”

Bucky does and it’s not long before they’re on the road out of the city. They pass through long stretches of suburbs. Little houses with respectable yards and picket fences. “I used to want one of these someday,” Bucky says, watching them pass by. “Thought when I got back from the war I could find a dame and settle down. You’d live in the house next door, of course.”

Steve nods even as his heart longs for those simpler days. “Not anymore?”

Bucky looks confused for a second, like he doesn’t remember what it’s like to have dreams of his own. He’s been working for those of his captors for so long he probably doesn’t and now there’s so much pressure on not dying that there isn’t much time to dream of a future. “Maybe. Though minus the dame. You can live with me instead.”

Steve blushes, ducking his head to hide it. “Whatever you want, Buck.”

The new safe house is in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a stretch of winding gravel road in the middle of the woods. The siding is green, chosen so that the house blends in with the trees. Steve isn’t even sure he would have noticed it if he didn’t already know it was here.

The inside is larger than the last house. There’s a fairly spacious living room, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Tony outfitted this one with a laptop and Internet access too, though there’s no dishwasher.

Steve puts all the food away while Bucky prowls around the house like a dog checking out new territory.

“No one has lived here for a while,” he announces, wandering into the kitchen. “At least six months.”

“That sounds right,” Steve says, putting away the last of the goods and stuffing the bags under the sink in case they need them again later. “It’s part of a network of safe houses that a friend of mine maintains. They’re for emergencies, not for living.”

Bucky nods and continues to poke around. “Let’s go for a hike,” Steve suggests once everything is squared away.

The air outside is clean and clear. A light breeze cuts through the trees from the north. Steve feels weightless, being able to walk around outside without a disguise, without pretenses, without having to look over his shoulder every few minutes. If Bucky’s grin is anything to go by, he feels the same way.

“I remembered something else,” Bucky says, bumping Steve companionably with his shoulder. When they were younger, the move probably would have sent Steve stumbling but now he barely even misses a step.

“What?” Steve asks.

“Our apartment.” Bucky bumps him again. “It was tiny and you didn’t want to move in at first, but it was better than anything else.”

“Even smaller than the last safe house.” Steve’s smiling now. He remembers the day that Bucky invited him to move in. Remembers not having anywhere else to go but not wanting to intrude. “You told me that I didn’t have to do everything on my own.”

“You still don’t.” Bucky’s voice falls low and serious, and then he grins again. “You were a bed hog for a skinny fellow.”

“Shut up. I seem to recall you were the one who liked to drape himself on top of me. Made it next to impossible to get out of bed.”

“You liked it,” Bucky says but his eyes look sad at the memory. Steve remembers all those times that Bucky had to protect him before the serum and looks away. “I remember something else too.” Steve looks back. Bucky’s eyes are predatory in a way that Steve remembers well.

Bucky steps forward, backing up Steve until he hits a tree. Then Bucky’s lips are on his and the kiss is hard and rough in a way that it never has been before. “I remember how you taste,” Bucky whispers into his ear. Steve parts his lips, his head thumping back against the tree. “Should we see if that’s changed?”

“Are you sure?” Steve asks, unable to stop himself from thinking about the night before.

Bucky freezes for a moment where he’s running his lips up and down Steve’s neck. “Are _you?_ ”

There’s nothing for Steve to do then but nod eagerly and try not to moan as Bucky slides to his knees right on the ground in front of him. It’s been too long, _far_ too long, and even if it hadn’t been, anyone he’s kissed since 1945 wasn’t Bucky.

Bucky unzips Steve’s jeans and pushes them down just enough to reach his cock. Then Bucky’s wrapping his hands around his thighs, the metal hand just a little bit tighter, and taking him into his mouth.

It’s not as good as Steve remembers. It’s better. It’s _so much better._ Bucky might not remember everything but his tongue certainly remembers exactly where to press and his mouth remembers exactly how to suck in order to take Steve apart. In seconds his hands are twining through Bucky’s hair, merely holding, not directing.

“Fuck, Bucky,” Steve murmurs. He mumbles something in return, but Steve’s cock is down his throat at the time and that makes it hard to understand. Then he sucks lightly at the head and Steve is coming so hard his knees shake. Bucky swallows quickly and then stands, holding Steve up by pinning him against the tree with his own bulk.

“Some things never change,” Bucky says and then kisses him, the taste bitter and familiar, reminding Steve of the first time when he made Bucky brush his teeth after and the second when he didn’t care because all he wanted to do was kiss his best friend.

Bucky waves him off when Steve moves to return the favor, but he winces a bit as they walk. Their hike is cut short by the arrival of dinner time and they head back to the cabin before either of them is really ready to leave the fresh outside air.

Bucky tosses and turns in his sleep, breath coming out in gasps. The mattress springs screech underneath him. The bed isn’t really big enough for two, but Steve feels too tired for once to just relocate to the other room. Still half asleep, he reaches out to tug Bucky in close.

Steve goes flying to the floor and rolling until he hits the wall. The deep throbbing in the middle of his chest makes him realize that it was Bucky’s metal arm that punched him. The man in question looms above him, hands raised and ready for a fight. His eyes are dark and empty.

Steve tackles him to the floor. It’s hard for either of them to get enough purchase on the wood floor to gain the upper hand. “It’s me, Bucky.”

All the tension leaves Bucky in a second, leaving him boneless underneath Steve. Steve rolls off his best friend, helping him up and climbing into bed like nothing happened. Bucky hesitates for a second, reaching out for the covers and then almost runs from the room. A few minutes later Steve hears the water running in the shower.

He stays in bed, half-asleep, until he feels Bucky slide into bed at his back and wrap his arms around him. “You okay?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, but his voice is raw and too harsh. “I’m fine.” He cuddles up to Steve, draping himself over him as best he can now that Steve’s much larger than he used to be. Even though it gets hot under Bucky _and_ the covers, Steve lets him.

Bucky’s out of bed before dawn but when Steve wakes up he can hear banging and swearing in the kitchen. Steve finds him trying to find the right amount of pressure to crack eggs with his metal hand to keep them from exploding.

“How did you even do that?” Steve asks as no small amount of egg shoots into the air and lands in Bucky’s hair.

“Shut up, punk,” Bucky growls without turning around, reaching for another egg.

“Jerk.” Steve crosses the room and takes the egg carton. “You get cleaned up and let me do this. What were you making?”

“French toast.” Bucky sighs and heads off to the bathroom. By the time Steve has half the carton of eggs cracked and is mixing milk and cinnamon in, Bucky is back. “At least let me cook them.”

“Only if you use a spatula.” Steve reaches into a drawer and tosses one to him.

Bucky searches the cabinets for a frying pan until he finds one that’s too small but still the only one they have. “Fine. Buzzkill.”

When they’re done, Steve volunteers to take care of the dishes and Bucky disappears into the rest of the house. A frankly alarming silence descends when Steve tucks the last dish away into the drying rack.

“Bucky?” Steve dries off his hands and heads into the living room. All the cushions have been removed from the couch and are spread across the floor. Bucky’s sitting up with his back propped against the couch, grinning up at him. “Just like when we were kids,” he says.

“Not just when we were kids,” Steve says, dropping down next to him. “Remember that time we built a fort in the living room?”

“Your mother was so mad.” Bucky grins at the memory, spinning around and kicking his legs up so they’re on the frame of the couch. “You want to…?”

“Yes.” Steve’s scrambling to his feet in a second and they’re both laughing as they rush around the house, grabbing everything they can find. Blankets and pillows from the bed. Spare sheets from the closet. A thick afghan hidden under the couch.

The back of the couch forms one wall and the kitchen table is brought in to make the other. They cover the whole thing with blankets, stuffing the pillows and couch cushions inside. When it’s done, Steve climbs inside. It’s a little cramped for the both of them but all the more reason for Bucky to cuddle in close.

“What happened to that girl?” Bucky asks, his flesh-and-blood hand drawing circles on Steve’s chest. “The one you were sweet on in the Army?”

“Peggy Carter.” Steve lets out a long sigh, thinking of kisses and promised dances and all those trips to the hospital only for Peggy to forget him again the moment he left. “She helped found SHIELD. Married someone else. I still visit her…sometimes.”

Bucky cuddles in a little bit closer, like he can’t get enough of Steve’s warmth even though it’s starting to get hot underneath the enclosed blankets. “Has there been anyone else? You’re not seeing anyone now, are you?”

“No, I’m not seeing anyone.” Steve kisses the top of Bucky’s head, where the roughly cut strands tickle his face. “Nothing serious since I woke up.”

“Really?” Bucky grins, his eyes playful. “I would have thought the girls would be all over you in that suit.”

“Not easy to relate to someone when you were born in the ‘20s and frozen in ice for 70 years.” Steve remembers having this conversation with Natasha ages ago, not knowing then that the person they were chasing was his best friend going through similar circumstances.

Bucky opens his mouth like he’s going to say something and then sits up enough that he can lean over and kiss Steve.

Steve feels the cold metal of the hand against his skin as Bucky reaches underneath his shirt to pull it off. They break the kiss only long enough to drag it over Steve’s head and then again so that Steve can do the same to Bucky. The smooth expanse of Bucky’s chest is rich and tan and a little shiny with sweat.

Their pants are next to go, impeded by Bucky who can’t seem to keep himself from palming Steve’s length through his jeans. “Wait, wait,” Steve gasps out as Bucky pushes his fingers underneath his boxers. “I think…just wait.”

Steve pushes his way out from the fort and into the strange coolness of the rest of the house. He grabs a couple of condoms from the bathroom—refusing to wonder who exactly bought them—and a bottle of lube that doesn’t seem to have been opened yet.

The sight of Bucky stretched out on his back with two fingers shoved inside of himself almost makes Steve’s eyes roll back into his head. Steve freezes on his knees just inside the fort, condoms and lube still clutched in his hand.

“Thanks,” Bucky says with a knowing grin as he snatches the bottle of lube from him. “Not that I mind you watching, but are you going to make me do everything myself?”

That snaps Steve out of his trance. He straddles Bucky, holding out his fingers for lube. Bucky adjusts himself, hands grasping at pillows, as Steve slides one finger into him.

“I’m 95, not made of glass—” Bucky’s words are cut off by a groan as Steve pushes in a second finger, wiggling them around until he finds that spot that always used to make Bucky come when he was close. “Oh, fuck. Right there.” Bucky’s hips jerk as Steve spreads his fingers apart, punctuating every thrust.

Steve adds a third finger and Bucky almost flies off the floor. “Come on, Steve, just get in me.”

Steve opens his mouth to ask if he’s sure but the look on Bucky’s face tells him everything he needs to know. He rolls on a condom and slicks himself up.

Bucky’s eyes flash for the briefest moment as Steve moves over him. Steve twines their legs together and slips one arm beneath his best friend’s back, flipping them over in one smooth movement.

“What are you…?” Bucky drops his knees to straddle Steve and his eyes darken when he glances down. “I’ve never…”

“I know.” It was always Steve that rode Bucky, back when he was small. Bucky never said, but Steve knew that it was because he was afraid of causing him any harm. “Go on.”

Bucky reaches between them, wrapping his hand around Steve’s base to hold him in place as he slides down. The sight of Bucky’s head thrown back as Steve’s cock slides into him from this angle makes Steve wonder why they haven’t been doing this for years.

When he bottoms out, Bucky adjusts himself for better leverage and then pushes up, setting a steady pace. He leans down for a kiss, their chests sticking together. Then Steve thrusts up as Bucky is coming down and they both let out a groan.

After that, the rhythm is lost. They move hard and rough against each other, Bucky’s cock trapped between them.

“Come for me, Buck. Come on.” Steve thrusts up hard, hitting that spot, and feels Bucky coming all over their stomachs. The feeling of Bucky around him is enough to throw him over the edge.

Steve doesn’t notice that they’ve managed to knock down their fort until the blankets that formed the ceiling collapse on top of them.

“Laundry’s going to be a bitch,” Bucky mutters as they fight their way out of the tangled mess. Steve laughs as he takes in Bucky’s hair sticking up every which way.

“We’ll take care of that later.” Steve kicks the blankets off his legs. “Let’s go take a shower.”

It starts out innocently enough, just washing each other’s hair and letting the water wash the evidence away, until Bucky’s cleaning goes a little too low and they have to go another round. The water runs cold before they get out.

Bucky’s breath catches in his throat as she watches Steve toweling himself off. “What?” Steve asks, unable to miss the strange look of horror in Bucky’s eyes.

“I pulled you out of the water. You fell off the helicarrier and I saved you.” His voice is tentative, the reveal of a secret rather than a memory shared.

“I know.” Steve smiles, his own expression grim. He’d woken up on that beach bruised and bleeding out just before help arrived, feeling like he’d missed something extremely important.

“How…?”

Steve meets his eyes, his smile slipping away. “Who else could have found me?” There was so much destruction and chaos that day that the likelihood of anyone even seeing him fall was low, let alone someone who would be able to find him in those dark depths.

They walk naked to the bedroom for clean clothes. It occurs to Steve that, since they’re the only ones here, they don’t really _need_ to get dressed but the way the tension falls out of Bucky’s shoulders once he’s slipped into jeans tells him otherwise.

Then there’s the fort to contend with. Pillows and cushions to return, blankets to clean, and everything to put away. It isn’t long until the living room is organized again. The room feels strangely empty without it.

Steve makes sandwiches for lunch and they eat them on the couch in front of the laptop, the original Star Trek movies playing now that they’ve finished the series.

“Do you think we would have loved this show if we watched it normally?” Bucky asks midway through the first movie.

“Of course.” Steve’s eyes are fixed on the screen even though Bucky’s hand is drawing circles on his thigh. “We love it now, don’t we?”

“We would have been 59 and gray together.” Bucky sounds strangely wistful for what their future would have been, if it hadn’t been for the war and the serum.

“Hey.” Steve hits the pause button so that he can turn to look at Bucky. “We’re 95 and together watching them now. That’s more than I thought we could get.”

Bucky’s face falls and he nudges the laptop out of the way so that he can crawl into Steve’s lap, hands fisted in his shirt. “When they found me, buried and broken in the snow, all I wanted was to talk to you. Get a message to you. Anything.”

Steve doesn’t realize he’s crying until he catches sight of the tears falling into Bucky’s hair. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” Bucky cuddles closer even though his face is already pressed against Steve’s shirt. “They kept wiping me and every time I felt like there was something I needed to remember. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I left you.” Steve closes his eyes and presses his face into Bucky’s hair, needing as much contact as possible.

Bucky shakes his head. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have—” Steve’s words are cut off as Bucky twists in his lap and covers his mouth with his own. Bucky traces Steve’s bottom lip with his tongue, looking for entrance. Steve parts his lips and lets his tongue tangle with Bucky’s.

“You saved me. On the carrier,” Bucky murmurs into Steve’s shoulder. “You could have gotten yourself off but instead you saved me.”

Steve’s heart beats against his ribs. “I wasn’t leaving without you.”

“I could have killed you.” His voice cracks and his fingers dig into Steve’s back like he’s trying to stop him from going anywhere.

“I couldn’t have lived without you.” Steve had known that it would happen the moment he recognized Bucky in the middle of the street. Even when Bucky said “ _Who the hell is Bucky?_ ” he hoped that his best friend was still in there somewhere.

Bucky kisses him again, slow and languid, and then stands up. His metal hand wraps around Steve’s wrist, the metal too smooth and too warm, and tugs him back into the bedroom.

Bucky fucks Steve hard and rough, the way they never did during the war. Bucky always treated him like he was made of glass, even after the serum had done it’s work.

Now, though, Bucky’s hands grip his hips tight enough to leave bruises and he fucks into Steve so hard the other man is sure that he’ll have trouble walking if he plans to stand again within the next few hours. The serum makes sure he heals fast, but this is the Winter Soldier.

When Steve comes, the entire room dissolves in white and his arms give out. Bucky thrusts into him twice more before he stills, groaning Steve’s name as he nuzzles the back of his neck.

Steve winces as Bucky pulls out of him and rolls off the bed to clean things up. “I’m sorry,” Bucky says as he cleans them both up with a towel, “did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine.” Steve feels boneless, like he’s never going to move again. They don’t get out of bed again for hours, resting in between rounds, though in the end the need for showers and dinner wins out.

“Hey, Steve?” Bucky says when they’re curled up on the couch once again watching Star Trek. Steve hums in reply. “I love you, punk.”

“Love you too, jerk.”

They’re still curled up on the couch together, absorbed in the fourth of the original movies, when the door bursts open. In less than a second, the laptop is on the floor and they’re both standing and ready for a fight.

“It’s _not_ Hydra,” a familiar voice calls from outside. Natasha waits for a few seconds to make sure she’s not murdered where she stands and then steps inside. Steve stands down, but it takes Bucky a bit longer.

“How’d you know we were here?” Steve asks as he sits back down on the couch and pulls Bucky down alongside him. Natasha closes the door and sits on the coffee table.

“This is _my_ safe house. JARVIS gave me some clues.” She shrugs easily, taking in Bucky out of the corner of her eye.

“Natasha, this is Bucky Barnes. Bucky, this is Natasha Romanoff.” Bucky takes Natasha in with that smooth, flirting gaze that he always used to have but there’s a strange new sharp-edge to it, like he’s recognizing a fellow member of the espionage community. “She, uh, helped Fury kill Pierce.”

“Pierce is dead?” Bucky’s eyes are a scattered mix of emotions and his mouth a hard line. His fists clench in his lap.

“Saw it myself,” Natasha cuts in. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t stay here long. I only came here to let you know that Tony is securing Avengers Tower as a place for all of us to live, if we want. You can come home now.”

Steve hesitates. This safe house feels more like home to him than anything in the modern world has. “What about Hydra?”

“Shield has dissolved.” Natasha sighs. “Maria Hill is working for Tony now. No one knows where Fury is. It’s complicated.”

“Everything is.” Steve leans back against the couch, forces himself to keep his eyes open. “I’ll only come back if Bucky is welcome.”

Natasha smiles at him, but her eyes say she hasn’t forgotten the destruction he’d brought down on the city the last time they met. She says, “Neither of you can stay here forever. Come back to New York,” which isn’t really an answer but Steve still figures means yes.

“Tell Tony we’ll accept,” Steve says and Natasha nods, leaving without another word.

Once they’re alone, Bucky turns to him with a confused expression. Steve tells him about the Avengers, showing him grainy video clips and news articles when it’s easier than just talking about what happened. He shows him Avengers Tower, the Iron Man suit, and explains as best he can that Thor isn’t a god of Norse mythology but an actual alien living in another world. By the time he’s done, Bucky only looks slightly less confused.

“And we’re going to go live with these people?” he asks, one eyebrow raised, still staring at the photos from the day Thor took Loki back to Asgard.

“Only if you want to.” Steve rests a hand against Bucky’s arm. “We don’t have to leave until you’re ready.”

Bucky nods, kissing his thanks into Steve’s mouth and neck. It’s about another week before Steve finds himself packing up his stuff to leave the safe house. If Bucky is nervous about going back to New York and living with the rest of the Avengers, it doesn’t show in his face. Every so often he makes jokes like, “Does this mean I get my own superhero costume?” and then more serious questions like, “Are we going to live in the same room?”

When they arrive at Avengers Tower, Maria is there to greet them. Her entire body stiffens when she notices Bucky and he starts to draw himself up in response. Steve rests a hand against the small of his back to calm him down.

“Tony’s not here,” Maria says, no hint of disdain in her voice, “but he told me that if you were to arrive that I should send you right up.”

“Thanks, Agent Hill,” Steve says, already heading for the elevator with Bucky trailing behind him.

“Not an agent anymore!” she shouts after him.

“Hello, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes,” JARVIS says once the elevator does close behind them. Bucky jumps, staggering back against the wall.

“Why is the ceiling talking?” he asks in a small voice.

“It’s JARVIS. He’s…a giant computer. Wired into pretty much everything in this place and also the Iron Man suits.” Steve isn’t really sure how to explain it but he doesn’t think Bucky would get Tony’s explanation any better than he did, so he decides to stick to the basics.

“I did not mean to frighten you,” JARVIS continues, sounding apologetic. “Your rooms are up on the thirty-third floor. Shall I take you there?”

“Yes, thank you.” The elevator starts to move and it’s only seconds before the doors are opening and they’re stepping out onto their floor. Steve’s jaw drops as he steps out.

They’re in the living room. The design is simple, nothing that he would have pictured Tony coming up with. The walls are a rich caramel color, the floors carpeted with a darker shade of brown. Paintings hang about the room, all beautiful. A third of one wall is taken up by a TV so large it might as well be a cinema screen.

“This…this is our place?” Bucky whispers. His eyes are huge and he’s still standing in the elevator like he’s afraid to so much as muss up the carpet with his feet.

Steve laughs and grabs his hand, tugging him into the room. “This is our place. For as long as you want to stay with me. Or until we decide that we want somewhere of our own.”

Bucky’s eyes darken and he whirls Steve around until his back hits the wall. “Sounds perfect to me.”

Bucky ends up fitting in well with the other Avengers. Once Natasha realizes that he is no longer a threat, she takes to sparring with him in the gym that Tony sets up and they trade fighting tips.

Thor, of course, takes to him immediately in the way that he does everyone deemed trustworthy.

Clint, having missed the entire Winter Soldier situation while it was going down, shows up one morning from who knows where and immediately begins trading jokes with him. It isn’t until Clint learns that Bucky is a crack sniper that they really become friends.

Bucky discusses Hydra technology with Bruce when he’s feeling up to it. The scientist is particularly fascinated in the cryo-technology and whatever they used to wipe Bucky’s memories.

Tony takes a little longer, though when Bucky’s metal arm is damaged in an attack by a creature that looks like a giant squid but seems to have giant spikes in place of suckers he’s the first one to offer to help fix it. He ends up going a little overboard with the features—is a pop-out spatula really necessary?—but Bucky seems happy with it.

Sometimes the Winter Soldier slips in like a ghost. Steve can see it all in his best friend’s eyes. Bucky’s are bright and shining, sometimes with tears and sometimes with hope. The Winter Soldier’s are empty and robotic.

In the end, Bucky always comes back.

Sometimes all it takes is a touch on the shoulder or a whisper of his name. Other times, it takes a kiss to wake him up. And sometimes, Steve just has to say three words.

“I love you.”


End file.
